"I ran to the basement and thought about my children. What if I won't see them again"

What was my first encounter with the war? I got up for work when shells started falling. I went to wake up the children for school. I had a kind of disbelief. I thought they would stop. We were waiting for them to subside. But the shells keep falling. So I called the teacher and said, "Children will stay at home because they can't get to school under fire." I called work and said I wasn't coming. That is how it all started.

The children stopped going to school, but I still went to work. I went on foot all the time during the war. I had to go through the bridge. There were times when I crossed the bridge normally. There were times when I had to lay down or fall into the water. Shells were falling, I held on to my work.

I worked at the hospital. It was a real challenge. It was very hard to look at the patients, how they had to suffer when we had to evacuate them to the basements. Old people took it very hard. It was very hard… They destroyed the Infectious Department and then the Surgery Department. I didn't think our building would get hit. But it did.

I screamed, fell to the floor, crawled on all fours from the fourth floor. I don't remember running to the basement, because I was thinking about my children. I just thought that I left two children at home and I wouldn't see them again.

My son became very ill in November. He had a fever. I started calling an ambulance. I didn't know what to do. I just knew I had to save him. I couldn't get through to the ambulance. Once we did, they said, "We'll come shortly." But by the time it left, I had already given him the injection myself to break the fever. I worked in a hospital. I know what kind of injections to give when you have a seizure.

Then the ambulance arrived. They took us to Bakhmut. The ride was very hard. The roads there were smashed. I thought I'd get sick. And I did. Finally, we got there. I thought they'd put Son in the ward. But looked at us and said, "You are from Mironivka. Why did you come here?" I said, "My son has a fever." They said, "It's okay, go home." Well, yes, the temperature fell  afterwards. But what amazes me is that they didn't even want to admit him. It was a night, and he was a child. What if he got worse? We came home at three o'clock in the morning.

We had to stretch our finances a lot. Thank God that Rinat Akhmetov sends us the humanitarian aid. I'm a single mother, and that means a lot to us. We also receive some donations from the church. We keep our own vegetable garden.

Only the children make me happy. Children are my happiness. I feel sorry for them, though. What kind of life do they have? I wish them the best. I wish they had better lives. I wish they did not see the war, diseases, sad people who cry, because they have no money to live on, because the pensions they receive are miserable.

However, I hope for the best. Maybe the war will stop. Maybe the hospitals will open, and people will have jobs.   I hope that the highway will open one day. Artemivsk, Debaltseve. I wish people go reunited. I wish children were not set up for war, but for a better life, for peace, for love, for friendship.